Explore alleys, backstreets, find lost buildings, secluded gardens and forgotten addresses

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Rates

Person: £25 | Age 13+

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Duration

3 hours

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About

Situated between Piccadilly and Pall Mall, the district of St James’s is noted for swanky gentleman’s clubs, boutique art galleries, and upmarket menswear, as well as one of the world’s best lending libraries. Over centuries, St James’s has drawn literally hundreds of writers into its midst, provided settings for novels, and hosted premieres of famous plays.

The St James’s Jaunt focuses on those writers who walked the streets of the district in the first half of the 20th century, and, alongside excerpts from their work, you’ll hear sensational stories from their lives.

Writers you’ll meet in St James’s: • Virginia Woolf • Wilfred Owen • Ian Fleming • Aldous Huxley • Edith Sitwell • Graham Greene • Siegfried Sassoon • Evelyn Waugh • Nancy Cunard • Robert Graves • Rose Macaulay • Noel Coward

Starting with the soldier poets of World War One and finishing with the spy fiction of the Cold War, this tour takes in the heady days of the fashionable 20s, the growing threat of fascism in the 30s, and the dark days of the Blitz. On our journey through time and place we see how some of the greatest names in literature responded to world events, scientific progress, and social and political change, and we meet women at the centre of London literary life who fearlessly experimented with form and style, and struggled to gain acceptance from the largely male literary establishment. What emerges is a network of friends and rivals who survived the impact of wars, wrestled with religious faith, and rode the waves of turbulent love lives.

So join us in St James’s to explore alleys, backstreets and squares, find lost buildings, secluded gardens and forgotten addresses, as we bring to life the novelists, poets and playwrights who frequented this unique part of the city in the first half of the last century.

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